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Man wants apology from school that let the word ‘fag’ appear next to his high school yearbook picture

“I want to show the young people today that you can’t let them get away with it,” Robin Tomlin told the Toronto Star on Thursday from his home in Robson, B.C.

By Lesley Ciarula TaylorStaff Reporter

Thu., Oct. 4, 2012

A B.C. man has been fighting since 1999 to get a formal apology from the high school that let the word “fag” appear next to his high school yearbook picture 42 years ago.

“I want to show the young people today that you can’t let them get away with it,” Robin Tomlin told the Toronto Star on Thursday from his home in Robson, B.C.

The page, with his picture and the slur, had even been part of a display at his 40th high school reunion, Tomlin said.

The letter from North Vancouver School District Superintendent John Lewis, which arrived as an email Wednesday, acknowledged the district realized Tomlin was still “dissatisfied with the response.”

Lewis wrote, “I wish to clearly convey on behalf of myself, the Board of Education and my staff that we are sorry that the Argyle yearbook was published as it was in 1970.”

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Not enough, Tomlin told the Star.

“I want a face-to-face apology, not an email. That’s the only way I think it would be a genuine apology. I don’t want a million bucks. I don’t think this is too much to ask.”

On Thursday, after media across Canada started calling, the school district agreed to a personal meeting.

“In addition to providing this formal letter of apology, I would be pleased to arrange a private meeting with you and to provide and apology in person,” Lewis wrote in an emailed letter.

District spokeswoman Victoria Miles said it had been “difficult to get the details” of the decades-old slur. The district “is hoping those individuals responsible will step forward.”

Tomlin had decided to try to get the yearbook changed after his daughter, now 29, saw it 13 years ago and was shocked.

“It hurt her to see it. She said, ‘Dad, you have to fight this.’”

The terror of his Argyle high school years had stayed with him, he said, and he’s spend his adult years helping counsel young people who were bullied.

“I had the most late slips in the history of the school. I never wanted to come early and get beaten up.”

He skipped his graduation for fear of another beating and gave his parents an excuse.

He never told them about the yearbook.

“They went to their graves not knowing. It would have broken their hearts.”

Tomlin, who married his high school sweetheart and moved away from North Vancouver after graduation, also started the “Let’s Find A Way Society,” which in recent years made a CD and documentary with Toronto musicians to help children with AIDS.

He remains CEO of the society and active in Canada and the U.K. on Hepatitis C advisory boards. He has suffered with the liver disease since 1974.

A fellow Argyle graduate who became a lawyer, John Stowe, took up his case pro bono.

In a letter to Stowe on Sept. 19, the school district legal counsel pointed out any human rights complaint Tomlin filed would be “untimely. The District has no legal liability.”

The district lawyer, Lisa Southern, did offer to rewrite his entry and replace the page in district and library copies.

The district had told Tomlin in 2004, four years after he first started lobbying for an apology, that “the statutory limitation period had long since expired,” Southern wrote.

“The school could have really used this as a learning experience,” Tomlin said. “They could have said, ‘Yes, it is wrong and we’re going to make up for it.’”

In a letter to Tomlin on Sept. 19, Superintendent Lewis reminded him, “Today, the North Vancouver School District makes an ongoing and concerted effort to ensure our students feel safe and supported.”

He went on to say: “I cannot take responsibility for actions or lack of oversight by staff over 40 years ago. I regret that you had such a negative high school experience.”

Tomlin declined to sign the district’s statement that he would drop any human rights complaints and keep any settlement in confidence.

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